How Wicked-er Can She Go? Read online

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  Lyrical Press, Inc.

  www.lyricalpress.com

  Copyright ©2009 by J. Morgan

  First published in 2009, 2009

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  Highlight

  How Wickeder Can She Go?

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About J. Morgan

  More from Lyrical Press

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  Back Cover Copy

  Go wild, get wicked!

  Nikki is as wicked as they come.

  Yeah, right—She's the wickedest witch you'll ever meet, if “wicked” means perky as all get out, and living off a trust fund. When her boss lays down the law, she actually has to work for a living and her world comes tumbling down. Ruining an uber geek's chance to find true love sounds easy until Gregory Hamilton shows up on her doorstep. He may be a nerd, but one look tells her this is a man with super stud possibilities.

  Turning on her inner wicked, Nikki does everything she can to prove true love ain't all it's cracked up to be.

  Highlight

  "I am evil."

  "I am vile."

  "I am the wickedest one ever."

  Sure I am. Right! How can I be evil and vile, not to mention wicked, with a nose like this? I mean really. This thing could be on one of those sickeningly cute child stars it's so perfect. I'm a witch, not some puerile child star. Do I look like one of the Olsen twins to you?

  Before you answer that question, remember I'm a witch. Not that I could give you more than a mild case of cramps at the moment. This whole perky thing has me bummed. I might not be Olsen-twin perky, but I could pull off a nice Rachael Ray.

  Be quiet Nikki. You are not a Rachael Ray.

  Nikki is me, by the way. The other voice speaking there is me, too. She's the one who reminds me I'm evil when I'm feeling especially perky, which is more times than I am willing to admit in a public forum like this. Well, I'm not admitting to anything, so stop waiting. For people I barely know, you're a pushy bunch. Isn't it enough to admit to feeling perky without revealing how much of the time I spend doing it?

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  How Wickeder Can She Go?

  by J. Morgan

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Lyrical Press, Incorporated

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  How Wickeder Can She Go?

  Copyright © 2009, J. Morgan

  Edited by Charlotte Cowie

  Book design by Emma Wayne Porter and Renee Rocco

  Cover Art by Renee Rocco

  Lyrical Press, Incorporated

  17 Ludlow Street

  Staten Island, New York 10312

  www.lyricalpress.com eBooks are not transferable. All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher's permission.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  Published in the United States of America by Lyrical Press, Incorporated

  First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: April, 2009

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Dedication

  Without the grace and divine sweetness of one person this book would not have been possible. Meems, I don't care what anyone says. You are the sweetest of the wicked and the heart and soul of Nikki.

  I'd also like to thank Terri, without whom I would never have gotten the Smythe dynasty off the ground and Debbie at Kwips and Kritiques for liking my sneak peek enough to threaten me with bodily harm if I didn't finish it. This book is for you guys.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 1

  "I am evil."

  "I am vile."

  "I am the wickedest one ever."

  Sure I am. Right! How can I be evil and vile, not to mention wicked, with a nose like this? I mean really. This thing could be on one of those sickeningly cute child stars it's so perfect. I'm a witch, not some puerile child star. Do I look like one of the Olsen twins to you?

  Before you answer that question, remember I'm a witch. Not that I could give you more than a mild case of cramps at the moment. This whole perky thing has me bummed. I might not be Olsen-twin perky, but I could pull off a nice Rachael Ray.

  Be quiet Nikki. You are not a Rachael Ray.

  Nikki is me, by the way. The other voice speaking there is me, too. She's the one who reminds me I'm evil when I'm feeling especially perky, which is more times than I am willing to admit in a public forum like this. Well, I'm not admitting to anything, so stop waiting. For people I barely know, you're a pushy bunch. Isn't it enough to admit to feeling perky without revealing how much of the time I spend doing it? My mother would roll over in her condo in the Bahamas if she knew I was even talking to you about this.

  She probably already is, to tell you the truth. I am somewhat of a disappointment to the grand Smythe-Ponthynhausen name. What she thinks is so grand about it, I'll never know. There are only four bona fide witches out of the whole bunch. The rest were all wanabees, dragging on Grand-mama's good name for all it was worth. I'm not vindictive, but after four-hundred-plus years, you'd think the first few inquisitions and witch trials would have taught them not to flaunt what they didn't have.

  That was wicked of me. Wasn't it? Maybe there's hope after all.

  Let me get the hell away from this mirror. It's making me sick, with all the perkiness staring back at me. I mean, it's not my fault I was born this way, long curly black hair falling down my perfect white shoulders. I didn't want these full red lips, or piercing green eyes that haunt men for days. Okay, maybe I'm not too upset about those, but the cupid-shaped face has to go. I'm busty, too, with matching curves around the hips. What self-respecting witch wants those? You have to have a whippish figure—with lots of odd angles that can jab a man and make it hurt—to be a real witch, as my mother loves to point out.

  As you can see, I have quite the complex about all this. If I had a wart, or even a single, solitary blemish, I could deal with it better. Thanks to my dad, I've been left with an immaculate complexion. Mitches tend to be pretty. Mom should have known better than to fall in love with someone fr
om the same species, not that I don't love my dad. Because I do. He's the greatest, but he's so proud of passing along the Ponthynhausen genes to me, he tends to ignore Mom's wrath over me losing the Smythe part of the equation. In his defense, I did get the power from Mom. Mitches are big on showmanship, with some earth magic thrown in, but everyone knows witches are da bomb!

  What? Mitches? You don't know what a Mitch is? Sorry, I tend to forget you mortals aren't up on the proper terminology we members of the higher orders use. Like everyone else, we tend to keep important stuff like that in books we don't lend out, because people treat other people's stuff like crap. We learned that a long time ago, when Evenia Dumaxious asked Dora, her next door neighbor to watch a box for her while she went to Troy over the weekend. Dora ended up breaking the damn thing, letting all sorts of crap loose in the world. If you're looking for someone to blame, she's the reason we have tax attorneys to this day.

  Mitches are male witches, whereas female witches are, well, witches. Since we're the most powerful of the species, we got to take the name. It's also the reason you get a lot of: If it's screwed up, Mitch did it, in the witching community. Believe me; a Mitch is not worth troubling yourself with most of the time, unless he's my dad, of course.

  Hey, Dad! You never know. He loves me, and might be reading this. Dad, if you are reading this, please cover your eyes during the naughty parts.

  All this back-story is killing me. What I needed was to get my crap together, forget how I looked, and just go for the evil. It can't be that hard; fashion models do it all the time. I watch Ugly Betty. I know things. If only I could be an Betty.

  Stop it! We're about to make a change remember? No looking back. From this moment on we're...

  "Ahem."

  You're. You're going to be the witch with the mostest.

  "That's more like it."

  Sorry for the mental debate but I had to get it out of my system, before the cobwebs gathered around it and trapped my neuroses there for the rest of the day. I really don't have a split personality or anything. It just helps to talk it out in my head before it comes out my mouth and makes me look crazy. Which I'm not! I'm a witch, thank you very much. This was a totally different set of issues altogether, as you've probably gathered.

  Anyway, I've been at the whole witching thing since I graduated from Miss Bonet's School of Witchery and Social Graces back in ... Wait, that would be telling my age! I'm not so stupid I'll go around telling people I barely know how old I am. Needless to say, I've been at this a while. I even have a costume to distract from my obvious shortcomings, but it itches and makes me sneeze, so don't ask me to model it for you or anything. Luckily, I have a trust fund, so you'll only see me wearing it on special occasions, or when Mom cuts me off from my bank account.

  Anyway, I live in a small town, which forces me to adhere to the Witches’ Code: remain unseen, but well known. Don't ask me what the dang thing's supposed to mean. I didn't come up with it. To tell you the truth, witches are a bit loopy. Hide, but let your name go in the phone book under ‘Witches for Hire'. I'm waiting for the day the internet takes hold with them. They'll be cursing people from laptops while they go to the john. I know them. They're that lazy, and plagued with problematic bowels. Comes from eating from their ingredient jars. The narsty bitches. There is no way in hell I'm eating the eye of anything if a potato ain't attached.

  Back to the small town before I delve into the dietary habits of witches any more. My mother set me up in the South, nothing scenic mind you, because the top witches get all the good locales. You have to wait a hundred or more years to get anywhere nice. It felt like I'd been stuck in the backwoods of northern Louisiana since the dawn of frigging time. I'm not that old, so stop guessing.

  I shouldn't say stuck, because it is nice here, just as hot as all get out. But please! I'm a short skip and jump from the Big Easy, not that I can even set foot in the joint. Witches are like super territorial and the witch over New Orleans has got a big bee up her panties. Just because Melina didn't like Mom, I am forced to pay the price. Melina happens to be the big honcho for the Southern Witches League. Everything from South Carolina all the way through to Louisiana fell under her control. In fact, the whole country was broken up under different leaders.

  Shoot! I'm digressing again. Darn it! It's another sign of my perkiness showing. Thank Heaven I'm not blond, or I know I would be even more ditzy than I already am. Which isn't saying much. I was pretty frigging ditzy.

  I've been stationed in Blanc Baton for awhile. Not telling how long, so keep the question zipped. We've already gone over your incessant guessing and I'm not warning you again. The town sits in the middle of nowhere. It has a nice population growth, almost none. The neighbors keep to themselves, and I get to sleep in every day. The place only has a couple drawbacks: the place had no bookstore, and you could totally forget about running down to Starbucks. The closest one requires a thirty minute drive and a passport to get there. The solitude of my hell away from home is worth it, though. For that reason alone I gladly accept the sacrifice of driving for the new Mary Janice book, and my weekly fix of Green Tea Latte, extra whipped cream, if you please.

  In case you're wondering, you can find my name listed in the book under Witch, but nobody calls—anymore! Change one little ingredient in a spell, and no one trusts you. In my defense, I honestly thought turnip greens were a viable swap-out for something or other. The mishap was entirely not my fault, as anyone with a lick of sense could plainly see.

  The page in my grimoire had been smudged, and I couldn't read the recipe. So what if the smear tasted like a Dove chocolate? That in no way indicated it belonged to one of my Dove chocolates. Chocolate rarely falls from these lips. Even if it does, I tend to lick first and worry about the consequences later.

  The upshot of my faux pas was I got to live a life of luxury, and had to do nothing to earn the right. Sweet! As you can tell, this left me a lot of time to work on my evilness or idleness. I always get those two confused. Maybe because I'm good at one, and not so good at the other?

  I wished I had all day to debate the whyfors and therefores of my current situation. Unfortunately, I had things to do—super important witch things. I had my semi-tri-monthly meeting with Melina's head Gabaroon—a sort of familiar, or lackey, for lack of a better word—to—t—get ready for. Because I only had a junior status in the witching corps, I was under certain restrictions until I achieve my hat. I know it's crazy. A witch without her hat! But those are the rules. Anyway, Jerkin, honest that's his name, was due any minute to check up on my witchiness.

  I spent most of the night before getting ready. Secretly, I'd hoped to get bags under my eyes or something from all the late hours I'd stayed up trashing my house. Nada! I mean, the entire house had been spruced down for the event. Cobwebs hung from the corners with care, in hopes spiders would soon live there. So far, the only things to come set up house were some ladybugs. I thought I'd seen a rat under my couch, but it turned out to be a stuffed giraffe from the grab-it game outside Wally World. I kicked it toward the back in a fit of unperkiness. Felt good about it until the little glass eyes wouldn't stop glaring at me. I ended up taking it into the bedroom and tucking it under the pillow. Don't tell Jerkin, okay?

  I hadn't had any problem getting the yard perked down. I don't go outside. As far as I was concerned, sun and fun did not mix. No fuss, no muss. Grass had grown up as tall as me. Broken branches lay everywhere, and my red rose bush had turned black from distrust. There was even a skeleton in the ditch. Not sure what type of living thing it had once belonged to, because I don't touch icky things, plus it smelled bad. I had already decided not to go out there until the Parish had the common decency to have it cleared away.

  As it stood, the house was more than ready for inspection. On the other hand, I wasn't. Jerkin would just have to deal with what he got. It wasn't like we haven't been doing this since, like, forever. Same Shit Different Day, if you know what I mean. He comes in and screams evil!
I cringe, and fling magic at him until he laughs, and then he marks his pad and leaves. It's a routine we've become accustomed to.

  The clock on the wall chimed a quarter until the hour. I checked the digital clock on the cable box, because I'm never sure if the one on the wall kept proper time or not. Nope, same time. Fifteen minutes until he got here. Good thing I hadn't start watching Tyra Banks. Don't think Jerkin would've appreciated the entertainment value.

  Grabbing a handful of cat litter from the pantry, I sprinkled it around the floor for a finishing touch. With ten minutes to spare, I thought nobody could blame me for taking a little breather. Five minutes of Tyra wouldn't hurt. My butt had barely hit the couch when the front door flew open.

  My head jerked up to see a monstrous shape in the doorway. It slipped into the room, its curved horns slicing trenches in my wall. How rude! Jerkin was really developing an attitude. Didn't he realize I had to pay for that stuff to be fixed? I was set to give him a piece of my mind when it hit me.

  That wasn't Jerkin! Oh crap. No, he wasn't a demonic Amway salesman, but he came damn close. It looked like Melina had found herself a new boy toy. One who'd taken his promotion to heart and decided to kick off his new job with a power trip.

  "Little witch. Melina sends her regards.” He loomed over the couch, and sprayed the words in my face.

  "Hey, bud! Watch the waterworks.” I slung my hand over my face, in case he had a second dose ready to fly.

  "Are you not afraid of my fearful countenance?” He actually seemed hurt to ask me.

  "Not really. Jerkin smells worse, and has the whole overbite thing going for him.” Well, he did.

  "Jerkin is no longer affiliated with the Lady,” the Gabaroon huffed.

  "Good, I was beginning to worry about him. Last time he came, he looked positively human. Melina should take better care of you guys. It's all that humidity and sunshine.” I tsked.

  "You are as much the inane twit they said you were."